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Zenobia of Palmyra1 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za A QUEEN FOR ALL SEASONS: ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA1 M M Breytenbach (Stellenbosch University) Throughout the centuries a number of truly remarkable women emerged to awe the world. One of these is a charismatic warrior queen of antiquity, Zenobia, last ruler of the once wealthy and exotic city-state of Palmyra in Syria, that flourished in the late Roman Empire of the third century AD. She rose to power upon the death of her husband Odenathus, a client-king of Rome, when she acted as regent for their son Vaballathus2 born in 260 AD. The queen was just and capable, a patron of artists and philosophers, learned, strong-willed and dynamic, and reputed to be one of the great beauties of history. She fought alongside her troops and astounded the ancient world by carving out a large territory beyond Palmyra, even subjugating Egypt, before being overthrown by the formidable Emperor Aurelian who came to power in 270 AD. At his triumph in Rome, Aurelian displayed the Palmyrene queen weighed down by gold chains and jewels, but so great was his respect for her that according to one tradition he settled her in Rome where she lived out the rest of her life. Introduction One of the greatest warrior queens of antiquity, Zenobia of Palmyra, stunned the ancient world by her temerity in challenging the powerful Roman Empire in the turbulent third century AD. During her extraordinary career she managed to conquer a great deal of territory over which Rome claimed sovereignty and by 271/2 AD she had created a virtually independent kingdom. The threat that Zenobia constituted is described as follows (Grant 1981:282): “[The] most vigorous, durable and menacing of the oriental dissidents came from the oasis city of Palmyra (Tadmor) on the borders between Syria and Mesopotamia”. In this turbulent time, when Roman hegemony was being threatened from all sides, Zenobia took advantage of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus’ preoccupation with the menace of the Goths to extend her power over most of Asia Minor, and then Egypt. She was not born a ruler, but rose to prominence as the wife of the powerful Odenathus of Palmyra, a client king of Rome. It was after his death, when she was ruling as regent for her son, that she dared to display imperialist ambitions herself. The proud tradition of semi-legendary queens whose ranks Zenobia joined, include Semiramis of Assyria, Nitocris of Egypt, Cleopatra VII of Egypt, whose influence was also feared by the Romans, and finally the Syrian aristocrat Julia Domna, who married Emperor Septimius Severus. In the male-dominated and chauvinistic Roman world of the third century AD, Zenobia was seen as an alien who transgressed sexual and political boundaries by assuming power and ruling her city-state, Palmyra, like a man. Rome interacted with the ancient Near East on many levels, culturally, commercially and militarily, but it usually dealt with male rulers. Nevertheless, when the queen of Palmyra succeeded her client-king husband to rule over this 1 This article is based on M M Breytenbach’s MPhil thesis in Ancient Studies (University of Stellenbosch) entitled “Queen Zenobia of Palmyra’s Rebellion Against Rome”. 2 Other versions of “Vaballath” are “Vaballathus” and in Palmyrene “Wahballath”. In Palmyrene Zenobia was “Bath-Zabbai”. Akroterion 50 (2005) 51-66 http://akroterion.journals.ac.za 52 BREYTENBACH colourful and exotic centre of Near Eastern civilization, an oasis which dominated the lucrative trans-desert trade route across Syria and Mesopotamia, it prospered under her rule, which means that she was as capable of good governance as any benevolent male ruler. Her Roman adversary, Aurelian, who would effectively end her run of power, grudgingly conceded that she had ruled very ably but no Roman emperor dared allow such a competitor to prevail. Sources The earliest surviving source, apart from contemporary inscriptions and coins, of most of the events in Zenobia’s history is the Historia Augusta. Although Syme (1983:27) describes this as a valuable source of reference, he is of the opinion that this collection supposedly written by six historians (of the six names the most relevant for this study are “Trebellius Pollio” [on Claudius] and “Flavius Vopiscus” [on Aurelian]) was written by a single person during the reign of Theodosius after 395 AD, long after the events took place and long after the supposed date of composition. Syme (1983:12) further says: “The larger part of the HA is fabrication.” He (1983:105) also maintains: “Characters from the author’s own time may also be suspected” such as “Nicomachus” who supposedly wrote about the correspondence between Zenobia and Aurelian (HA Aurelian 27.6). Unfortunately, one is compelled to glean most of the information about the historical figures dealt with in this study from the Historia Augusta since “For the years 117 – 284 it is the sole Latin source of any compass” (Syme (1983:12). Drinkwater (1999:262) in his review of Watson’s Aurelian and the Third Century says: “I suspect that Watson’s heroization of Aurelian derives much from the ‘Life’ of this emperor in the Historia Augusta; and this raises another problem. The HA provides by far the largest ancient narrative that we have on Aurelian. A few, very few, of its statements may be true, but most of what it says in Rabelaisian rubbish...The evidence of the HA, however enticing, should be struck from the record.” Another important source is the Greek history of Zosimus ((trans.) Ridley:1982) who, in the sixth century, wrote a history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to 410 AD. Almost nothing is known about this author. His work corroborates the events described in the Historia Augusta. The progress of Zenobia’s rule is seen on coins issued at the time. In the Roman Empire there were 22 mints which were mostly located in the East (Stoneman (1994:117). As she and her son(s) extended their empire to the west, they issued coins struck at Roman mints. At first Zenobia issued coins with the head of the Roman Emperor Claudius Gothicus. After he and his brother and successor both died in 270AD, Zenobia issued coins with Aurelian on the reverse and her son Vaballathus on the obverse. Soon after, in Egypt, there was an Alexandrian issue of the same but this time the legend was in Greek whereas the previous one had been in Latin. Another bronze issue in Alexandria shows the prince and Aurelian face to face. Before Aurelian conquered Palmyra in 272AD, there were two more issues from Syria and Egypt. One shows Vaballathus, calling him Augustus, and on its reverse is Zenobia as Augusta. Vaballathus is “associated with Victory, Hercules, the sun and other impressive deities”, Zenobia with Juno, Artemis, Providence and Hope. Palmyra fell to the Romans soon after (Colledge 1976:234). http://akroterion.journals.ac.za A QUEEN FOR ALL SEASONS: ZENOBIA OF PALMYRA 53 The Palmyrenes’ assumption of the highest Roman ruling title, constituted a great challenge and perilous provocation. Stoneman (1994:119) makes the point that Zenobia only coined in her own name in Egypt “from whose rulers she claimed descent, and where queens were a regular feature”, for in fact she was supposed to be secondary to her son in a “male-dominated ancient world”. Historical background to Zenobia’s rule Syria, in which Palmyra was located, was invaded over centuries by waves of Egyptians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Greeks, Persians and Romans. Alexander the Great of Macedon conquered the area in 331 BC. Until 636 AD the Greeks, the Romans and the Byzantines were the masters of the land. The Hellenistic influence was strong in the ancient Near East for centuries after Alexander’s conquests. Cross-cultural contacts in Syria brought about a Greco-Roman-Syrian mixture. Palmyra was cosmopolitan, so that the gods of various cultures were worshipped (Hitti 1959:59). Palmyrenes mostly spoke Aramaic and Greek (Birley 1988:71). The official languages were Palmyrene and Greek (Millar 1971:5). While Septimius Odenathus lived he “held the balance of the East in his hand”, for had the Palmyrene ruler not come to its aid, the Roman Empire might not have survived there. Consequently Emperor Gallienus conferred on him the titles dux Romanorum and restitutor totius Orientis (Stoneman 1994:106). After he had returned from his second and final victory at Ctesiphon in Persia, he attended a birthday celebration at Emesa, where he was murdered in the year 267 AD by his cousin Maeonius. His son Herodes was murdered as well. The twelfth century writer Zonaras (12. 24 (PL 633) cited by Stoneman (1994:108)) alleged that Maeonius bore Odenathus a grudge after a hunting quarrel. The HA (Tyr. Trig., 27. 2-3) mentions a conspiracy: “It is said, however, that previously he [Maeonius] had entered into a conspiracy with Zenobia, who could not bear that her stepson Herodes should be called a prince in a higher rank than her own two sons, Herennianus and Timolaus. But Maeonius, too, was a filthy fellow, and so, after being saluted as emperor through some blunder, was shortly thereafter killed by the soldiers, as his excesses deserved.” Palmyra had a “caravan economy” where “an oligarchical class of merchants and caravanners amassed considerable riches by exacting high tolls from caravans”. The Palmyrene aristocracy lived in luxury and expended their wealth on fine buildings such as temples, colonnaded streets, palaces and fine tombs (Bounni 1985:382). Palmyra was surrounded by fierce roving nomadic tribes. According to Hitti (1959:84): “Palmyrene chiefs secured safe-conducts for passing caravans from desert sheikhs; guides led those caravans through the barren region; mounted archers protected them against bedouin raids; and the city imposed heavy duty on each article of merchandise as it passed through its gates”.
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